1.
But certainly in Uganda, Mozambique and South Africa, people don't really talk about sex and certainly religious leaders - some of them - up to now have been very unwilling to accept, for instance, the promotion of condom use
Emma Thompson
2.
Its unfortunate and I really wish I wouldn't have to say this, but I really like human beings who have suffered. They're kinder.
Emma Thompson
3.
We need men and women to sit down and talk to each other about sex honestly and openly. That would help us fight Aids so immediately. But our lack of communication is hugely problematic.
Emma Thompson
4.
I want a different world. One where I don't wake up thinking I'm so lucky to be able to feed my daughter, and able to give people a clean drink of water. I don't want images of starving babies at the breast in my mind. I want that to change. And if I want that, I had better do something about it.
Emma Thompson
5.
I don't think people understand that being poor means you have to work from dawn until dusk just to survive through the day. I think there's some notion that poor people lie about all day not doing anything.
Emma Thompson
6.
Being disabled should not mean being disqualified from having access to every aspect of life.
Emma Thompson
7.
I think books are like people, in the sense that they'll turn up in your life when you most need them.
Emma Thompson
8.
I think books are like people, in the sense that they'll turn up in your life when you most need them. I firmly believe there are books whose greatness actually enables you to live, to do something. And sometimes, human beings need story and narrative more than they need nourishment and food.
Emma Thompson
9.
But when I lose my temper, I find it difficult to forgive myself. I feel I've failed. I can be calm in a crisis, in the face of death or things that hurt badly. I don't get hysterical, which may be masochistic of me.
Emma Thompson
10.
I hate the way market forces try to separate us out in to the appropriate demographic - basically in order to sell us things. We need to find stories that we can enjoy together, not separately.
Emma Thompson
11.
The Catholic Church - it's so difficult because I don't want say anything offensive but it makes me very angry that religious leaders from this faith have tried to respond negatively to sexual education and to the promotion of condom use
Emma Thompson
12.
Any problem, big or small, within a family, always seems to start with bad communication. Someone isn't listening.
Emma Thompson
13.
I was brought up by very witty people who were dealing with quite difficult things: disease and death... I was brought up by people who tended to giggle at funerals.
Emma Thompson
14.
Maybe I don't take myself so seriously any more. And I don't care how I'm judged. I'm past all that.
Emma Thompson
15.
When husbands and fathers leave, their wives and daughters tend to value themselves less as a result.
Emma Thompson
16.
You can't imagine what satisfaction can be gotten from throwing a pie into someone's face.
Emma Thompson
17.
During an election, it's like they're doing my job: they're going around banging the drum for their party and selling their movie. You know, it's the same thing.
Emma Thompson
18.
Just write. It doesn't matter what you write. Just sit at your desk and write.
Emma Thompson
19.
A lot of very beautiful women can be a pain because all they're thinking about is how they look.
Emma Thompson
20.
Children don't need much advice but they really do need to be listened to and not just with half an ear.
Emma Thompson
21.
What was important was trying to create something that families could watch together and enjoy together
Emma Thompson
22.
Sometimes you'll have some things, and sometimes you'll have other things. And you do not need it all at once; it's not good for you.
Emma Thompson
23.
The fact is that young people are going to have sex whether you like it or not.
Emma Thompson
24.
Constantly worrying about your reflection and criticizing your body, shape and size is an act of violence against yourself.
Emma Thompson
25.
The trick is to age honestly and gracefully and make it look great, so that everyone looks forward to it.
Emma Thompson
26.
We must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days are in fact here for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives.
Emma Thompson
27.
Children are the most wonderful audiences. What's struck me most is that that they watch it so silently, until the end when they shriek and shout and clap.
Emma Thompson
28.
The insanity of consumption bothers me. Talk about the opiate of the masses. It ain't religion anymore. It's stuff.
Emma Thompson
29.
There is a painful difference between the expectation of an unpleasant event and its final certainty.
Emma Thompson
30.
If you've got to my age, you've probably had your heart broken many times. So it's not that difficult to unpack a bit of grief from some little corner of your heart and cry over it.
Emma Thompson
31.
My worst quality is impatience.
Emma Thompson
32.
If you don't want women to do whatever they need to do then you must provide them with food, you must provide them with shelter and their basic human rights.
Emma Thompson
33.
Without the ice, the earth will fall
Emma Thompson
34.
I don't mean being famous is a perk, because one knows that it's not necessarily a perk, but there are certain perks to being well-known and respected in one's field. Public perks. Like, I don't know, general friendliness and willingness to please, just to point out two.
Emma Thompson
35.
This morning, I went to wipe my hands on a tea towel, and while I was using it, it seemed like it felt a bit light. I unfolded it and realized my daughter had cut little bits out of it to make frocks for her dolls!
Emma Thompson
36.
We have to reinvest, I think, in the idea of articulacy as a form of personal human freedom and power.
Emma Thompson
37.
My appearance has changed a lot over the years, but it has far more to do with how I feel about being a woman.
Emma Thompson
38.
Once you're a mom, you've been split into two people. It's like Peter Pan and his shadow.
Emma Thompson
39.
My husband is here and I'd like to thank him, for many things, but first of all for pointing out that I had a big hole in my frock and then that my nipples were pointing in different directions. It's good to have an expert there to help you with that sort of thing.
Emma Thompson
40.
We belabour, I think, under a very heavy crust of consumerism really
Emma Thompson
41.
Indeed - judicious, consistent parenting is a dream of mine. No judgements, learning space and listening carefully are my goals.
Emma Thompson
42.
I think the point about ActionAid is what it's asking people to do is engage with poor people in developing countries and understand what their lives are like and understand how the way we live our lives impacts on theirs.
Emma Thompson
43.
The best way [to survive] the red carpet is by wearing Ugg boots. But unfortunately, I have not yet managed to persuade the people who style me at these times to let me do that.
Emma Thompson
44.
I have a nervous breakdown in the film and in one scene I get to stand at the top of the stairs waving an empty sherry bottle which is, of course, a typical scene from my daily life, so isn't much of a stretch.
Emma Thompson
45.
I am who I am, and there is nothing I can do about that.
Emma Thompson
46.
Laughter is a celebration of our failings. That's what clowns are for. And that's what I am.
Emma Thompson
47.
The only way you can have it all is by delegating all the running of the home to other people - which I don't ever want to do... So you do it yourself, and it takes time and energy and effort. And if you give it the time, it's profoundly enjoyable.
Emma Thompson
48.
A lot of people in my world - in the acting world - have either lost friends to Aids or live with HIV because its origin in our culture, in New York for instance, was in the gay community.
Emma Thompson
49.
I do think that despite my best efforts to resist it, I am now a grown-up. It's due to lots of very difficult decisions that you make over a long period of time - about motherhood, wifehood, and work, and all the things that one has to make decisions about.
Emma Thompson
50.
I've a problem with the word charity because I think that NGOs, as I prefer calling them, really do take the work of moral and social responsibilities that ought to be taken on by governments.
Emma Thompson
